(re:)Building Services Concepts For Increased Performance and Efficiency Contents 2 3 6
Letter Summary Problem Definition LA’s Current Development Services Initiatives Reframing the Problem: Top-‐Down Control Limits System Evolution City as Service Provider City as Regulator
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Reframing the Solution: City as Regulator The Concept Reference: Integrated Reform: Performance-‐Based Codes Meets Private Compliance Authorities in the U.K. Re-‐regulating For Higher Performance: A Global Trend
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Initiatives Performance-‐Based Standards (p 11) Excerpt: LA’s Performance-‐Based Seismic Code Reference: How it Works in Singapore Excerpt: Performance-‐Based Fire Code Reference: The Nation’s First Outcome-‐Based Energy Code in Seattle Reference: New Zealand: Lessons in Introducing Performance-‐Based Codes Risk-‐Based Permitting (p 18) Reference: Differentiated Risk-‐Based Plan Check in Germany Example: Australia Private Compliance Authorities (p 19) Reference: United Kingdom: Public-‐Private Competition in Building Control Reference: Competition-‐Fueled Reforms Through Private Permit Professionals in Bogota Reference: Competitive Building Permitting in Australia Adaptive vs Fixed Technology Reference: Liability and Insurance Mechanisms for Quality Control in France
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Conclusion References and Further Reading
Harnessing Industry Advancements for a Better L.A. The coming decades demand higher building performance. Builders need to discover creative problem-solving methods, import successful innovations from around the world, and use advancing technologies and modeling systems to their fullest advantage. With some of the world’s most highly qualified designers and engineers, Los Angeles is well-positioned to be the leader in 21st century building practices. But our outdated regulatory environment is deterring advancements in higher-performance building practices. The city needs to reexamine its approach to building services to ensure a regulatory environment that supports a vision of L.A. as a safer, greener, globally elite city. As the Mayor’s Sustainable City pLAn recognizes, the city of L.A. has many challenges to meet in the coming decades. L.A. must become better prepared for geologic and climate disruptions including earthquakes, wildfires, heatwaves, and rising sea levels. It needs to take proactive measures for water conservation, energy efficiency, air quality, and emissions. (Buildings are currently the largest consumers of electricity in the city, and a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, the pLAn notes.) With an estimated half-million new residents in the city in the next twenty years, the already-swollen need for cost- and space-efficient housing will become more urgent. Buildings can play a major role in addressing these concerns. Designers and engineers have made great leaps in creating more cost-effective, space-efficient housing, and energy-efficient, low-emissions, emergency-prepared buildings. Empowered by more dynamic technologies and increasingly interconnected global expertise, innovation and discovery of higher-performance building techniques promises to accelerate more quickly in the next century than ever before. But our regulatory systems are out of sync with the goals of the city. At a time when higher performance is most pressing, low-performance building methods are cast in stone with prescriptive building measures, while slow, bureaucratic processes discourage designers from proposing higher-performance solutions. There is a problem when the city views box-checking as more important than problem-solving. While the city states goals of greater sustainability and energy-efficiency, building regulations often actively get in the way of implementation of even more sustainable, energy-efficient building methods than the code requires. Builders can’t help L.A. become a leading 21st century city if bound to 20th century practices. This has consequences – for everyone. Complicated and time-consuming bureaucratic procedures dissuade development, an economic stimulus for the city worth $7 billion a year, and raise costs, which are passed on to consumers. Permitting processes, even for low-risk projects like single-family residences, are so complicated that an entire industry of consultants and expediters has arisen simply to navigate the process. The most serious consequence is the health of the city itself. Los Angeles is America’s #1 smoggiest city, on a fault line, in a desert, bordering the ocean: the city faces challenging environmental issues. We need building regulations that promote the safest, highest-performance buildings possible. Los Angeles urgently needs to reassess its regulatory processes if it is to be a global leader in sustainable development. Here, we do not suggest specific strategies for implementation, but offer general concepts and references to trends in global regulatory reform—progressive policies that encourage a future-oriented, performance-forward building industry. Thom Mayne 2
Summary Global Trends In the last two decades, there has been an increasing trend towards regulatory reforms that afford more flexibility and place greater responsibility on the private sector.
PerformanceBased Standards
Private Compliance Authorities
Risk-Based Permitting
Los Angeles Singapore United Kingdom Austria Colombia Australia New Zealand Norway France
Performance-Based Standards Problem: Overly-prescriptive provisions make it challenging to keep regulation up to date while discouraging higher-performance innovations and site-specific design. As of now, performance-based approaches and approval for modifications require a major undertaking by both the designer and the building department. Current codes and standards do not serve performance-based design well, discouraging higher-performance design. Solution: Flexible rules that are clear and coherent are fundamental to maintaining a safe and vibrant building sector. Besides being clear, building rules also need to be adaptable so that they can keep up with economic and technological change. Performance-based building standards set targets and overall technical standards and allow innovative building techniques to meet or exceed standards.
Clear Concise Codes Performance-based codes state the intended objective of the code without dictating every aspect of the building process. They may be accompanied by prescriptive Approved Solutions for convenience.
“The trouble with codes is that we constantly add, and you never take anything away, and invariably you start to have so many levels that you don’t accomplish what you’re trying to do.” Michael Bloomberg, Former Mayor of New York City
“Advances in performance-‐based design methodologies and capacity design principles allow for a more direct, non-‐prescriptive, and rational approach to analysis and design.” LADBS, January 2014, Alternative Design Procedure for Seismic Analysis and Design of Tall Buildings and Buildings Utilizing Complex Structural Systems
Greener Buildings Performance standards encourage creative methods of achieving more energy-efficient, loweremissions buildings. Prescriptive directives sometimes undermine their own objective by blocking designer’s even greener solutions.
Safer Buildings Performance standards are already used for fire and seismic engineering, and for high-risk buildings like skyscrapers. Buildings become safer when builders are allowed to creatively solve problems.
“It is difficult to comply with all rules and regulations. There are too many. When I joined the department 27 years ago, the zoning code was one inch thick and the building code was one and a half inches thick. Now the zoning code is 3 inches thick. The building code has three volumes; each is 3 inches thick.” Ray Chan, General Manager of LADBS
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“Today 86 economies have a risk-‐ differentiated approach, including the 17 that established one in the past 8 years.” World Bank Doing Business 2012: Dealing with Construction Permits
Risk-Based Permitting Problem: The review process and permitting requirements are out of proportion to risk. This not only needlessly hampers development, it also puts undue pressure on city permitting and inspection agents. Solution: Permitting requirements should reflect the risk level of the project as judged by its use, location, and size. Risk-based permitting processes allow governments to allocate resources where they are most needed without compromising worker and public safety. Risk-based inspections systems shift risk, responsibility and liability from public bodies to private engineers and inspectors and agencies, which are held liable for the safety of buildings and are subject to independent oversight.
Development Streamlining the permitting process for low-risk projects is good for development, which is key to providing affordable housing.
Efficiency Transferring responsibility from the city to the private sector removes needless bureaucracy and places fewer demands on city resources.
“We advise the Legislature to change policies to facilitate significantly more private home and apartment building in California’s coastal urban areas. On top of the 100,000 to 140,000 housing units California is expected to build each year, the state probably would have to build as many as 100,000 additional units annually—almost exclusively in its coastal communities—to seriously mitigate its problems with housing affordability. Facilitating additional housing of this magnitude . . . would require the state to make changes to a broad range of policies that affect housing supply directly or indirectly— including policies that have been fundamental tenets of California government for many years.” California’s High Housing Costs: Causes and Consequences, California Legislative Analyst’s Office, 2015
Private Compliance Authorities Problem: Lack of competition, organization, and incentives leads to slow, cumbersome development services with poor customer service and lagging technology. Improvements to services are slow to reiterate and require too much investment in exchange for uncertain returns. The flux of the real estate cycle means that the city is understaffed during a boom and overstaffed when real estate slows, creating a bottleneck when there is highest demand. Solution: Introducing a private alternative to public building control with welldefined liability mechanisms can make permitting processes more efficient, fast, and attentive to customer service while incentivizing safer, better building techniques. A competitive market of building authorities is well-positioned to stimulate and adapt to accelerating changes and improvements in both building information modeling and code-check technologies. The expertise and liability mechanisms of the private sector are necessary in order to validate and guarantee the safety and functionality of innovative performance-based designs.
“All significant reform experiences worldwide have involved some delegation to private building professionals or some form of joint responsibility at various levels of the permitting process.” World Bank Group, Good Practices for Construction Regulation and Enforcement Reform: Guidelines for Reformers
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Faster Permitting Better Customer Service Private permitting incentivizes Competition favors professional professionals to expedite approvals: staffs that interact efficiently with efficient approvals improve builders. This not only makes the earnings and increase customer process faster, but improves the satisfaction. quality of the technical reviews and approvals.
Specific Expertise Performance-forward designers can hire highly-skilled permit agencies to review performanceforward design.
Better Tools & Technology Private authorities are incentivized to adopt, develop, and promote the use of better software to effectively identify higher performance designs.
Aligned Incentives and Liabilities With proper regulations and liability mechanisms, such as warranties, bonded permitting authorities have a stake in the safety and success of clientbuildings.
Better Organization Good coordination and communication are key for efficiency. Competitive pressures promote better organizational and management models.
“In 1984 the United Kingdom began modernizing its building regulation. As in Australia, builders can now choose whether to have inspections conducted by licensed private inspectors or local public authorities. In 2012, 60 or so private inspectors – including several large corporate inspection firms – handled 30% of building control work. Introducing a private alternative to public building control has made the process more efficient and expedited services. Inspection in the United Kingdom are not free of charge, so by having clients choose private inspectors, local public authorities are losing revenue and thus have an incentive to compete with the private sector.” World Bank Doing Business 2014: Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises
Benefits to Los Angeles
Economy Fast, business-friendly permitting measures attract and increase investment in the city. In addition to providing thousands of jobs, the economic impact of development multiplies and benefits all industries.
Global Leader Better building regulations make for better building practices. Reforms that promote practices ensure Los Angeles continues to be a leader in safe, sustainable, performance-forward buildings in the 21st century.
“A study in the United States shows that accelerating permit approvals by 3 months in a 22-month project cycle could increase construction spending by 5.7% and property tax revenue by 16%.” PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2005: “Economic Impact of Accelerating Permit Processes on Local Development and Government Revenues.”
“Since development is the number one stimulator of the economy, if our department can successfully facilitate development projects, we can increase economic growth, create more jobs, and generate more revenue for businesses and more taxes for the city.” Ray Chan, General Manager of LADBS
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Problem Definition “The City’s development services do not effectively serve the City, its residents and businesses, and its economic interests.” Matrix Consulting Group, Analysis of the Opportunities to Improve Development Services, 2014
A recent city-commissioned report by Matrix Consulting Group identified the following challenges in the city’s current development services: • Uncoordinated, “opaque”, “archaic and fragmented” permit systems • Convoluted business processes that fail to optimize performance from a customer’s perspective, framed rather from the perspective of the individual bureau or department • Lack of knowledge and training • Slow services and poor metrics on permit issuance cycle time • Insufficient staff and an inability to deal with peak development services workload through the use of consultants or alternative staffing approaches • A lack of intelligent and well thought out analyses and recommendations from relevant departments Matrix Consulting Group, Analysis of the Opportunities to Improve Development Services, p. 6-8, 12, 2014.
In addition, we identify the following: • The building code is unwieldy and outdated. • The approval process for code modifications is prohibitively slow and permitting agents often reject higher-performance solutions. • Permit requirements do not match risk to the public. Small-scale projects, like single family residences, follow the same permit process as large projects, like skyscrapers, despite the fact that they are much lower risk to the public.
LA’s Current Development Services Initiatives The city has made laudable efforts to address these issues: re:code LA - A comprehensive revision of L.A.’s outdated zoning code. First adopted in 1946, the current Code has grown from a simple, 84-page pamphlet to an unwieldy, 600+ page book that inadequately realizes a 21st century vision of a better Los Angeles for all residents. Parallel Design-Permitting Program - The Department plan checks building permit plans at the conceptual design phase and continues to provide plan check, correction verification, and code consultation services throughout various design phases. When the final building permit plan construction drawings are completed, the building permit is ready to be issued. Front-End Case-Management Program - Permitting and inspection case-management. Available for anything with 30 or more units, $5M valuation, or 30,000 sq. ft. of nonresidential space. There is no additional fee. Online and Over-the-Counter Permitting - The Department of Building and Safety is issuing an impressive 90% of building permits over the Internet or over-the-counter. BuildLA - A permit, inspection, and enforcement information system. The creation of a more efficient, transparent, and predictable development system depends heavily on the application of this technology. “BuildLA is a web-enabled technology platform that will be used by multiple City departments to receive, assign, review, process, manage, and track all customer requests for services relating to the use and development 6
of land. As envisioned, the BuildLA system will include an interactive customer web portal, a workflow management platform, electronic plan review capabilities, a supporting database, and integration or data sharing with several existing City systems.” Restaurant and Hospitality Express Program - In response to Central City Association and the restaurant industry, the Department, in collaboration with the Bureau of Sanitation and the County Department of Public Health Department and Environmental Health, established a Restaurant and Hospitality Express Program. The goal of the program is to make the permitting and inspection process more efficient, enabling new Food Service Establishments to open on time and on budget by eliminating duplication of efforts and providing regulatory consistency through enhanced communication of pertinent information between these agencies. Online Building Records - The Online Building Records system allows 24-hour access to more than 13 million records dating from 1905 to the present, including building permits, Certificates of Occupancy, building modifications, grading information, Commission files, and more. LADBS Go - A smartphone app for requesting services like inspections, accessing permit information, reporting code violations and locating a Development Services Center (DSC). These initiatives will almost certainly improve services. Deep systemic reforms like re:code LA, if implemented well, could have an exceedingly positive impact on the city. However, top-down management, lack of coordination, and misaligned incentives makes it difficult for most surface-level reforms to be implemented effectively, consistently, and in keeping with advances in the industry and technology. More thorough systemic reform is required to address these underlying problems.
Reframing the Problem: Top-Down Control Limits System Evolution “The city has been studying opportunities to improve development services for a long period of time without much in the way of results.” Matrix Consulting Group, Analysis of the Opportunities to Improve Development Services, 2014 The city has hired consultants to perform a dozen studies over the last two decades, yielding various solutions for creating better building services. Surely many of these reports, like the Matrix Consulting Group report, offer sound suggestions. But even if adhered to, administration of the proposed solutions is expensive, difficult to implement, time-consuming, and in need of continual updates. What’s more, there is no guarantee that regimens that look good on paper will function well in real life. Creating a best-fit service plan is not a matter of simply thinking of supposedly “good ideas”. Nor is it a matter of importing “best practices”. Fitness is discovered over time through search-and-discovery, trial-and-error, is highly specific to local conditions, and is ever-adapting. Technological and surface-reorganization solutions are temporary solutions that ensure the city remains on consultant life-support and always one step behind. The goal should be to create a healthy, living—as in adaptable, evolutionary, and proactive—development services. The problem with city initiatives thus far is that the city’s focus is skewed towards itself. Rather than identifying the best way regulate an environment with overall better building services, initiatives focus on making the city a better service provider. Here’s the difference:
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City as Service Provider The city: • Reviews and revises state-adopted ICC building codes • Reviews and corrects all building plans • Performs inspections • Responds to complaints and performs site visits for code violations, large and small. • Issues fines, collects fees, and sets permit and inspection prices • Tracks industry changes and global competitive practices, continually updating its processes to reflect new norms • Revises processes and software to meet new, ever-changing demands • Employs thousands of personnel across the spectrum of development services (LADBS alone: 736 fulltime employees / 238 as-needed employees) City as Regulator The city: • Governs a marketplace of private service providers that handle development services which, operating under regulations set by the city, may include: o Code provision o Plan check o Permit issuance o Inspections o Response to code violations. • Sets forth risk classification and permitting requirements for developers and ensures that the appropriate process is followed o Ensures buildings are properly sited on the property o Ensures buildings are constructed in accordance with local planning and zoning requirements • May require public certification of service providers and their employees • Provides a judicial board for building-specific conflict resolution • Works in collaboration with industry professionals to consistently reassess the legal framework, identifying ways to reconfigure and improve regulations to create a chain of incentives that achieves city values and the public good • Maintains a small employee-base of legal experts and a review board
Reframing the Solution: City as Regulator The quality of services and government structure do absolutely always go hand in hand. But the city can achieve better building services either by becoming a better service provider or by becoming a better regulator. This report identifies elements of the city as regulator model. Private sector incentive structures and competitive pressures are the right ecostructures for efficient, adaptive, responsive services. Meanwhile, public judicial powers and legislative capabilities are the right ecostructures for regulating and maintaining the health of a private sector that is fair and responsive to public values. The private and public sectors should play to their strengths. By reconfiguring the buildings department as a regulator rather than a service provider, Los Angeles can create a strong development ecosystem. 8
Part of the art of public policy is aligning incentives of private industry with the values of society. It is determining the hard parameters of a system that generates market driven solutions towards the public good. Here we will set forth some general concepts for setting up such a framework and show how global trends in regulation address identified problems.
The Concept There are many different ways one could approach this matter, from a wholesale reconstruction of the city’s role towards fully performance-based codes and fully market-based compliance mechanisms, to small, incremental solutions to particular problems. Determining the right approach is a matter of understanding what is realistic and feasible within the context of the city. The solutions proposed here attempt to include structures that promote adaptability and evolution of building codes and services within the parameters of the existing system. The report focuses on the following goals: • Harnessing the expertise of the global building industry and improving speed and customer service of building services through private sector competition • Streamlining building codes • Instituting permitting processes that match the risk level of a building There are three main components to accomplishing these goals: • Allowing private compliance authorities to review and permit plans • Identifying the performance-basis for all existing code • Risk-based permitting classification A single alteration of a system’s rules affects the entire system dynamics and, while each component is presented individually, these components often go hand-in-hand and may necessitate one another. For example, allowing private compliance authorities to permit plans may necessitate a risk-classification system in order to ensure that projects have proper liability structures in place according to their respective risk. Or, allowing private compliance authorities alone may streamline permitting processes, but the benefits may be augmented by allowing building private authorities to approve innovations in higher performance building, which requires performance-based standards. Many of the proposed reforms will be seen to overlap in the references.
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Re-regulating For Higher Performance: A Global Trend Integrated Reform: Performance-Based Codes Meets Private Compliance Authorities in the U.K. “Prior to 1984, the United Kingdom had a relatively typical building control system, with review of building design and construction handled exclusively by local municipalities. These local authorities were responsible for the full range of building control work, from small residential renovations to large commercial projects. In 1984, the Building Act was amended to move away from very prescriptive regulations to facilitate innovation and increased flexibility in building construction through the introduction of performancebased regulations that outlined the objective to be achieved without prescribing specifically how it should be achieved. It was anticipated that the move to this performance- or objective-based building code, which facilitated the use of innovative or alternative solutions to building design or construction, would require a higher level of expertise among building control authorities. Because of this consideration, the government reformed the building control system to bring private-sector expertise into the process. The U.K. building regulatory system focuses heavily on building control rather than building practitioner control. Under the U.K. system, the state does not directly regulate the competence of persons or firms undertaking building or design work; rather, it focuses its efforts on improving the building control system.� Good Practices for Construction Regulation and Enforcement Reform: Guidelines for Reformers
Performance-based standards, risk-based permitting, and private compliance authorities are not a new idea. In the last two decades there has been an increasing global trend towards these reforms. The proposed reforms are accompanied by references and analyses of global trends. A note on the references: Unlike the U.S., many other countries have a single nationwide building code and permitting process. While local officials administer building services, regulatory processes are more consistent nationwide. Thus, national references are used for comparison. While the United States does not have a single consistent building code or permitting process, many of the codes are adopted according to national International Code Council (ICC) standards. The city could integrate variations on these concepts into existing practices or appeal for changes at the state or national level.
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Initiatives Performance-Based Standards “Advances in performance-based design methodologies and capacity design principles allow for a more direct, nonprescriptive, and rational approach to analysis and design.” LADBS, January 2014 – Alternative Design Procedure for Seismic Analysis and Design of Tall Buildings and Buildings Utilizing Complex Structural Systems
Performance-based codes yield higher-performance buildings. Performance-based design is a major shift from traditional prescriptive design concepts and is in line with the future of engineering. Modeling software is already used to develop better seismic and fire engineering. As modeling technologies develop in the data-driven age, software will be able to predictively test a building’s performance based on hyper-localized data of soil consistency, slope, wind, rainfall, geologic conditions, and even user-interaction through agent-based modeling. Prescriptive building codes are a primitive safety mechanism compared to advancing technologies. They are rigid and unable to keep up with changes in design and innovation. They describe and cast in stone one possible solution, blocking innovations that could lead to even greater levels of safety and sustainability. The purpose of performance-based regulation is to state the actual objectives of building regulations rather than stating thousands of over-stipulated directives, as is the case with prescriptive codes. “Besides being clear, building rules also need to be adaptable so that they can keep up with economic and technological change. Performance-focused building codes set targets and overall technical standards but do not regulate how to achieve those standards. This allows room for innovation in building techniques. Overly-precise provisions make it challenging to keep regulation up to date. Flexible rules that are clear and coherent are fundamental to maintaining a safe and vibrant construction sector. The effects of overly-specific codes not only hamper development, they also put undue pressure on city permitting and inspection agents: enforcing too many rules and responding to complaints, especially those of a non-hazardous nature, is a daunting task.” World Bank Doing Business 2012: Dealing with Construction Permits It is indicative of the benefits of performance-based code that the city employs performance standards rather than prescriptive codes to manage its highest-risk buildings. Performance standards are used for seismic and fire engineering, and for tall-building construction. The goal for high-rise buildings is to design the most durable, the most structurally sound, and the most economic building that can be built. This means reducing material, reducing cost, and capitalizing on space while improving safety, energy-efficiency, and durability. These improvements to building design should be encouraged in all the city’s buildings. The city accepts performance-based modifications to prescriptive codes, but this is not the best solution. LADBS prides itself in its frequency of approving modifications. This may be better than only enforcing rigidly prescriptive codes, but it’s akin to saying: “The law is good because it changes all the time, and not for everybody, but for some people.” If a concept is strong enough to be a law, it should be clear, enforced, and rarely changed. If it isn’t, it probably shouldn’t be a law. Performance-based building standards dictate what is necessary, while listing prescriptive code as a possible “Approved Solution” to achieving those standards. This makes law clear, stable, and equally-applicable.
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An excerpt from the city’s performance-based seismic code “The building code attempts to provide a minimum level of safety through a series of prescriptive provisions. These prescriptive provisions are broadly applied to all types of buildings, from one-story to the tallest. These building code provisions result in the application of requirements that are not specifically applicable to design of tall buildings and buildings with complex structural systems, and which may result in designs that are less optimal and less safe. Advances in performance-based design methodologies and capacity design principles allow for a more direct, non-prescriptive, and rational approach to analysis and design. The performance-based design procedure will include the following three step seismic analysis and design procedure with the intent of providing the following characteristics: a. Well-defined inelastic behavior where nonlinear actions and members are clearly defined and all other members are designed to be stronger than the elements designed to experience nonlinear behavior (Capacity Design Approach). b. 43-Year Return Period - The building’s structural and nonstructural systems and components remain serviceable when subjected to frequent earthquakes (50% in 30 years). c. 2500-Year Return Period - The building has a very low probability of collapse during an extremely rare event (2% in 50 years with deterministic cap). Properly applied, the application of this procedure and the subsequent analysis should result in a safer and more economical design along with a higher degree of confidence in building performance than the prescriptive requirements of the code.” An independent technical review board of practicing professionals performs a technical review of the structural design that relates to seismic performance and advises LADBS on whether the design conforms to the performance standards. LADBS, January 2014 – Alternative Design Procedure for Seismic Analysis and Design of Tall Buildings and Buildings Utilizing Complex Structural Systems
As of now, modifications are not entered into law as approved alternate solutions, meaning the code doesn’t evolve naturally as new solutions arise. Each individual builder must pay and wait for individual modification review. The city may not have the time, technology or specific expertise to judge proposed modifications in a timely and cost-effective manner. Furthermore, because the performance basis behind each prescriptive code is not always explicit, reviewers may be working without a framework to objectively judge the proposal. A modification application can take weeks or months to review. This is time, and therefore money, that builders cannot afford to lose. Most often, they will follow prescriptive code rather than proposing a better design solution. “Performance-based approaches today require a major undertaking by both the designer and the Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ). Current codes and standards do not serve performance-based design well. They typically do not state their goals, objectives, or levels of safety. The task of determining these parameters proves difficult as each concerned individual often has a differing opinion of what is intended.” National Fire Protection Association’s Future in Performance-Based Codes and Standards: Report of the NFPA In-House Task Group. 1995.
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The process of modification-approval needs to be streamlined. A streamlined solution should combine the regulatory power of city government with the innovative and service-oriented expertise of the private sector. 1. The objectives, functional requirements, and performance criteria of building codes need to be made explicit. 2. The city should allow bonded professionals to review and sign off on proposed modifications, and rely on warranties and other liability mechanisms to ensure their adherence to performance standards. 3. The city should accept applications for alterations and additions to performance criteria as needed. As advancements are made in the building industry, there will be cases when even performance criteria are overly-prescriptive. When such cases arise, builders will need to submit proposed changes to the city to demonstrate how new performance criteria better address the functional requirements of the code. This is better than the current system because it happens less frequently, demanding fewer city-builder interactions. The city can keep prescriptive codes as Approved Solutions. Some firms may find it difficult to respond to performance-based standards. They can stay on the prescriptive code system. This allows more innovative firms to make advancements in the field while still providing guidelines for firms that prefer to follow a prescriptive set of rules. “Nearly all energy codes in the United States are prescriptively-based. They are composed of a list of prescriptive requirements for various building components; however, this list only addresses a limited number of the factors that impact the actual energy outcomes of buildings, leaving designers and policy makers with only a limited means for requiring and demonstrating energy efficiency. By looking at actual energy outcomes in buildings, outcome-based codes can move past the limitations of performance proxies and address the full set of factors that determine energy performance.” New Buildings Institute, Bringing Outcome Based Code Compliance to the International Green Construction Code (IgCC), 2012
Performance-Based Fire Code “A growing belief has arisen that the recommendations in Building Regulations throughout the world are too conservative, lack cost-effectiveness and overlook many real fire behaviors that may affect the necessary levels of fire protection. By using performance-based design methods, real fire effects are addressed based on credible ‘worst case’ design scenarios. This can lead to increased design freedom from prescriptive code restrictions whilst maintaining safety. Appropriate and cost-effective fire safety measures are derived. These design solutions have been proposed, accepted and integrated throughout Europe and are increasingly being proposed for the US.” Barbara Lane, Performance-Based Design for Fire Resistance
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Performance Standards and Acceptable Solutions: How it Works in Singapore Note: A Qualified Person is a person who is registered as an Architect with the Board of Architects or a Professional Engineer with the Professional Engineers Board. The acceptable solutions, which are basically the previous prescriptive requirements, will serve as reference points to Qualified Person in their designs. These acceptable solutions are standard designs, which have been proven for building safety. Qualified Persons are given greater flexibility in their design solutions and are allowed to adopt alternative solutions. To exercise this flexibility, Qualified Persons must be prepared to take responsibility for their designs. They must ensure that their designs can meet the stated performance objectives. Any Qualified Person proposing alternative solutions is required under the Act to exercise due diligence to ensure that the solutions proposed are not inferior to the acceptable solutions in meeting the desired performance requirements. If Qualified Persons are not prepared to take up this responsibility that comes with the flexibility, they can choose to adopt the acceptable solutions and be deemed to have met the stated performance objectives. The alternative solution can be certified by the submission Qualified Person or another Qualified Person who is a specialist in the alternative solution proposed. If the alternative solution is based on certain material specifications or construction technology, a certificate issued by an independent laboratory or certifying authority is generally considered as acceptable evidence of compliance. In the case of an alternative solution for a quantifiable requirement, an acceptable basis for evaluation is the use of computer simulation to confirm compliance with performance criteria. If the required documents are in order, there should not be any delay in the approval process involving alternative solutions. In the performance-based regulations, the design is required to meet the objectives and performance criteria. If the Qualified Person adopts the acceptable solution (deemed to have met the performance requirements) but an incident occurs, and if the Qualified Persons has taken reasonable steps and exercises due diligence in complying with the Act and the building regulations, he will not be penalised. Singapore Building and Construction Authority
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Introducing Performance-Based Standards Into An Existing Prescriptive Framework In order for proposed design alternatives to be considered objectively, regulated, and enforced, they must demonstrate that they meet performance criteria. It is better to adopt performance standards in combination with existing prescriptive codes than jump immediately to a performance standard in order to make sure supporting functional requirements and calculation methods for judging performance criteria are in place.
Authority Municipality
Code Components Objective Clearly and succinctly establishes the intention of each section of the code
Municipality
Functional Requirements Describe the functions that need to be assured to achieve the objective
Municipality
Performance Criteria Clarifies method used to measure and judge compliance with the objective
Municipality and Private Compliance Authority
Pre-Approved Solutions
Alternative Solution
Deemed to satisfy prescriptive solutions, i.e. municipal building codes (Municipality)
Direct assessment against the functional requirement (Private Compliance Authority)
Objective: For example, general resistance of building to local environmental factors Functional Requirements: For example, “structure must withstand seismic activity of x degree, structure must withstand x-mph winds” Performance Criteria: For example, “building must sway between x and x degrees” Pre-Approved Solution: For example: “steel coils of x-diameter shall be...” Private compliance authorities may determine pre-approved solutions: prescriptive solutions that designers may use to fast-track their project and keep it low cost. The provider may offer various approved code books that come with corresponding warranty prices. It is preferable to have each Private Compliance Authority compile and order its own pre-approved solutions. The competition between Private Compliance Authorities ensures that solutions are well-ordered and easy to navigate. However, the city may compile a running record of various authorities’ approved solutions as they are developed and shared. Alternative Solution: The designer may offer an alternative means of accomplishing the stated functional requirements. Depending on the variation of the new solution, the designer may prove that the new solution is equal to or better than the pre-approved solution as determined by pre-set performance criteria. Or, if the new solution is more radical, it may not fit within the standard performance-measurement criteria and a new set of criteria can be co-created with the authority to determine if the solution meets or beats functional requirements. 15
The Nation’s First Outcome-Based Energy Code in Seattle “Outcome-based energy codes go a step beyond performance-based codes by verifying actual energy performance in buildings. Compliance is contingent upon demonstrating that a building’s energy use, once the building is occupied, meets or exceeds a specific performance target. By monitoring building performance, outcome-based energy codes incorporate the design flexibility of the performance-based model while including all energy loads. Outcome-based energy codes also have the potential to create a positive feedback loop, in which verified energy use data gathered from projects can be incorporated into targets used in future code revisions. . . The concept of the outcome-based code was borrowed from the Danish energy code – a 14-page document significantly simpler than the 200 page 2009 Seattle Energy Code. . . The 2012 Seattle Energy Code includes a new compliance pathway based on verified energy performance – the first outcome-based energy code path in the nation. This voluntary, alternative pathway, in a departure from prescriptive and modeled-performance code paths, regulates whole building energy consumption by verifying actual building energy use against a specific energy use index (EUI) threshold. The framework is being aligned with utility incentives to encourage innovation and reward performance. Prescriptive energy codes are the norm for enforcing standards of building energy performance in jurisdictions throughout the world. Prescriptive energy codes lay out a menu of options for elements in building construction with minimum or maximum values for components that designers incorporate into projects. This approach is relatively simple for building inspectors to verify, and supports a widely accepted measure-specific method for quantifying energy savings in buildings beyond code. However, prescriptive codes largely overlook a “whole building” approach to efficiency by ignoring plug and process loads, as well as other user behaviors that influence building performance, thereby missing opportunities to maximize energy savings. It is also quite difficult to create standards that can effectively deal with integrated design – for example, balancing effective daylighting with increasingly restrictive glazing allowances. Prescriptive codes can also be very costly and time-consuming for public agencies to review and update. Code updates can also translate to increased costs and diminishing energy savings returns for builders and developers. Improving building insulation, for example, becomes less cost effective and realizes only incremental energy savings with each required increase in R-value. The largest drawback of prescriptive codes, however, may be that the approach does nothing to verify energy performance over time. With the advent of energy modeling, development of performance-based codes have aimed to address a number of these concerns. Performance-based or modeled-performance energy codes allow projects to demonstrate modeled energy usage and comply through “percent better than” a specified baseline. Performance-based codes built on the “percent better than” standard allow for a whole-building analysis of energy use, integration of new technology at earlier stages of design, increased design flexibility, and better analysis of systems that are low cost that deliver large energy savings.” Driving Innovation, Rewarding Performance: Seattle’s Next Generation Energy Codes and Utility Incentives, 2014
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New Zealand: Lessons in Introducing Performance-Based Codes Prior to 1991, New Zealand operated under a fragmented set of building controls that were made up of a combination of national and local regulations, all of which were based on prescriptive requirements. In 1991, the NZ Building Act was passed that created a uniform, performance-based building code throughout the country. It was administered by the local territorial authorities with regulations developed by a quasi-governmental Building Industry Authority (BIA). The intention was to deliver an environment that permitted innovative design of buildings while ensuring that basic code requirements were met. The performance-based building code was accompanied by a set of prescriptive, deemed-to-comply documents known as the "Acceptable Solutions". Acceptable Solutions were not meant to be a benchmark or minimum standard, but rather a compendium of approved and documented design solutions to which builders can refer. New Zealand also established a Design Review Unit (DRU) within the NZ Fire Service which is tasked with reviewing aspects of fire safety designs relating to means of escape and fire service operations that deviate from the Acceptable Solutions. Lessons Learned New Zealand passed legislation for performance standards before ensuring calculation methods for reviewing those standards or liability mechanisms were in place, and had to make adjustments. Here are the lessons learned: 1. The city should require a minimum level of qualification or competence to undertake or sign off on a design not yet included in the list of Acceptable Solutions. Qualification could include membership to private merit-based professional groups. 2. Consent authorities should request an independent peer review of the design or some other mandatory process for checking of fire safety and any other safety feature. Warranties and insurance are a good solution. 3. There should be a mechanism in the process to ensure that the design intent is fully implemented in the final construction. Agencies providing warranties or insurance have an incentive to administer inspections. However, law could require it, including mandatory inspections without notice. 4. A heavily prescriptive regime should not shift to a performance-based set of rules overnight. Rather, there should be a phase-in process to allow for the birth and maturation of co-operative groups and services such as warranty and insurance companies, and professional merit organizations. Based on information gathered from World Bank Group, Good Practices for Construction Regulation and Enforcement Reform: Guidelines for Reformers 

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Risk-Based Permitting “Worldwide, the main criteria used to classify a construction project by its potential risk are based on the building’s use, location and size. Today 86 economies have a risk-differentiated approach, including the 17 that established one in the past 8 years.” World Bank Doing Business 2012: Dealing With Construction Permits Risk-based permitting allows governments to allocate resources where they are most needed without compromising worker and public safety. In addition to defining the inspection that must take place for different types of buildings, risk-based inspections systems have involved a growing shift in risk, responsibility and liability from public bodies to private engineers and inspectors. Bonded practitioners are held liable for the safety of buildings and are subject to independent oversight. Since 2005, 18 economies have incorporated elements of riskbased inspection systems.
The city should create a risk assessment system with permitting protocols for various risk levels. In typical risk-classification, buildings are classified according to intended use, occupancy, and location. The purpose of classification is to determine the degree and intensity of regulatory controls and liability coverage needed to protect the public. For example, high-risk buildings may require a mandatory city-review to ensure the public is fully protected while lowrisk and medium-risk buildings could be permitted, inspected, and insured by private compliance authorities.
Differentiated Risk-Based Plan Check in Germany “The German state of Bavaria introduced a differentiated permitting approach in 1994. For lowrisk projects the designing architects must show proof of their qualifications and assume liability for the construction. For medium-risk projects an independent, certified appraiser must approve the plans. Only high-risk, complex projects are fully reviewed by building authorities. By 2002 builders had saved an estimated €154 million in building permit fees that would have been paid to the government under the pre-1994 rules, and building authorities had 270 fewer employees on their payroll. The approach has spread to the rest of Germany.”
“Not all buildings are created equal. Controls and levels of scrutiny should vary depending on the building’s complexity, potential impact, and purpose. Such specificity allows authorities to focus their often limited resources on projects that represent higher risks for public safety. Approval times and review protocols for simple residential or commercial buildings should be very different from the ones used for complex chemical plants, skyscrapers, or large commercial structures.” Good Practices for Construction Regulation and Enforcement Reform: Guidelines for Reformers
World Bank Doing Business 2014: Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises
World Bank Doing Business 2012: Dealing With Construction Permits
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Private Compliance Authorities Allow private agencies to become permit certification authorities. “All significant reform experiences worldwide have involved some delegation to private building professionals or some form of joint responsibility at various levels of the permitting process.” Good Practices for Construction Regulation and Enforcement Reform: Guidelines for Reformers
Problem The Matrix report identifies the following (among other) problems with development services: • • • • •
•
• •
• • • •
•
Departments operate and manage review processes only within their own walls (or “silos”), with no view to processes in other departments. The permit system relies in part or, in some cases, entirely upon manual and paper-based systems. Lack of interdepartmental permit coordination. An opaque permit process There is a lack of citywide, end-to-end leadership to articulate process goals and metrics, a vision for the processes, to sponsor process redesign and improvement efforts, and plan their implementation, and to ensure compliance with the redesign. Business processes remain convoluted; the business processes have not been designed on an end-to-end basis to optimize performance from a customer’s perspective, but rather from the perspective of the individual bureau or department (e.g., the clearance process used by numerous departments that require the customer to coordinate their own permit rather than the City). The bureaus and departments, particularly top and middle management, do not collaborate on an ongoing basis in citywide process redesign initiatives. The levels of service provided by the City, in terms of the cycle time for its different processes, do not meet best practices. Simply put, the amount of calendar time taken by the City for its discretionary, ministerial, and public improvement / engineering processes is too long. Little in the way of metrics have been established for each process e.g., cycle time for issuance of permits. All of the department and bureaus assigned to development services are not co- located for the convenience of customers. The permit information technology is archaic and fragmented with five different permit information systems for the five different bureaus and departments involved in the development services process. The City appears to lack sufficient staff resources in many of these bureaus and departments to effectively respond to its development services customers. The City has experienced the same financial challenges as other cities and counties in California. The local economy is beginning to recover, however, and it does not appear that all of the bureaus and departments involved in the development services process are appropriately staffed to deliver a responsive level of service. At the same time, many of these bureaus and departments appear unprepared to put forth intelligent and well thought out analysis and recommendations regarding the required staffing for development services. On the whole, the City lacks the ability to deal with peak development services workload through the use of consultants or alternative staffing approaches.
Matrix Consulting Group, Analysis of the Opportunities to Improve Development Services, 2014, p. 6-8, 12
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The commonality and underlying cause of all these problems is a lack of, or misalignment of, incentives, and no competition to fuel better development services. The heavy top-down administration of building services creates overwhelming obstacles to innovation, adaptability and market responsiveness. Too much top-down administration is problematic in any organization. The old grand-plan model of hard thinking, long meetings, big ideas, extended rollouts, and grand unveilings is ineffective at keeping pace, especially as technology advances more frequently and dramatically. Incentives and competition make the private sector better at creating streamlined systems. Innovation and progress thrive when many organizations compete to make better and better products and services through bottom-up experimentation, user-oriented design, constant iteration, and a disrupt-mentality. Because services are competing for business, there’s a built-in mechanism for improving customer experience. A competitive system is good at advancing new technologies. A single service provider is not. For example, the city is currently developing a system to streamline its plan-review and permitting services. The proposed software for Build LA—while surely an improvement on archaic manual, paper-based systems—is already outdated. And it hasn’t even begun to be built. It is proposed to handle only 2D documents, not 3D Building Information Model (BIM) documents. It requires detailed human code-compliance review, though automated code-checking technologies exist. It is incapable of identifying code exceptions that meet or exceed regulatory standards. By the time its estimated to be completed, in 2017, it will only have become more obsolete in comparison to industry changes and require more consultants, more money, more time, more difficult-toimplement organization and management. Regulations that align private incentives with the public good are the key. With effective and well-enforced regulations that guide the private sector, private permitting and inspection authorities are stakeholders in clientbuildings’ quality and safety. Private compliance authorities are better than self-certification. “Some project stakeholders can be pressured to cut corners, thus reducing public safety. Building owners or designers, subject to cost and other pressures, may have a higher tolerance for risk than would the building occupants or the public. A third-party control provides the check and balance needed to minimize such risks.” Good Practices for Construction Regulation and Enforcement Reform: Guidelines for Reformers
United Kingdom: Public-Private Competition in Building Control “In 1984 the United Kingdom introduced revolutionary changes in building control in an effort to modernize its building regulatory system. The Building Code was transformed into a flexible, innovation-friendly performance- or objective-based code, and the building control regime was likewise transformed into a much more flexible system. Under the new system, home builders could choose to have inspections done either by a private approved inspector (AI) or by inspectors from the local authority. In the years since these changes were made, the scope of the private inspection alternative has expanded to encompass all types of construction.” Good Practices for Construction Regulation and Enforcement Reform: Guidelines for Reformers
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Competition-Fueled Reforms Through Private Permit Professionals in Bogota “Colombia introduced a new system that moved the administration of building permits out of state-run planning offices and into the private domain. Private professionals, called curadores, became responsible for the complete and timely review of building-permit applications. Response to the new regime from construction professionals has been positive. Curadores have very professional staffs that interact efficiently with builders. This improves not only the quality of the technical reviews and approvals but also makes the process much faster. Furthermore, since customers in Bogotá can bring their business to any one of the 5 curadores, competition tends to generate innovative, quality services. Decree 1272 of 2009 also established a system for evaluating and scoring curadores according to their performance, including services offered, permits approved, time for approvals, and others. This assessment is useful because curadores must compete for their positions, and the points received in this evaluation are crucial for their reelection. One of the main advantages of the curador-based system is the incentive it gives these professionals to expedite approvals: efficient approvals improve their earnings. For this reason, the curadores have led the way to further reforms.” Good Practices for Construction Regulation and Enforcement Reform: Guidelines for Reformers
Bogota Annual Construction Approved Annual Construction Valuation Time to Receive Permit
Before Private Permitting (1995-96) 11.3 million square meters $6 billion (6% of GDP) 1,080 days
After Private Permitting (2010-12) 23.7 million square meters $21 billion (7% of GDP) 33 days
Competitive Building Permitting in Australia “One of the key reforms introduced in Victoria in 1994 was the competitive building-permit system. The competitive system, part of a package of reforms designed to speed up the building-approval system, allowed registered private surveyors to compete with public-sector surveyors. Prior to the reforms in 1994, building permits were issued only by local councils. The new competitive system removed municipal building surveyors’ monopoly on issuing building permits and opened the market to private building surveyors (inspectors), who must be registered and insured to protect the public’s interests.” Good Practices for Construction Regulation and Enforcement Reform: Guidelines for Reformers
“Furthermore, in 2005 Australia amended its Building Code to introduce a risk-based categorization system for building that inspectors had to follow. In addition, in 2010 changes were made to the Building Professionals Board, which had been the sole body authorized to accredit private inspectors, regulate the profession and enforce disciplinary and legal actions against private inspectors. Now principal certifying authorities can accredit professional from various backgrounds—including engineers, planners and building and land surveyors—to serve as inspectors. By law, principal certifying authorities must be designated to conduct the mandatory inspection at the critical stages (stipulated in the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act), manage inspections and decide if additional inspections are needed based on a building’s risk level. The principal certifying authority must also issue the certificate of construction before the commencement of construction works and certify the safety of the building upon completion of construction. The principal certifying authority is held liable if any issues arise related to the building construction. However, inspectors must obtain an annual professional insurance up to a minimum of AUD 1,000,000 in order to be retained in their position.” World Bank Doing Business 2014: Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises
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Adaptive vs Fixed Technology Electronic plan-submission and plan-checking is the future of building regulation, but it is an emerging technology—it needs an environment that encourages, rather than limits, its maturation. Emerging electronic plan submission and code-check technologies are good. But it is a mistake to invest in a single technology for the city, especially in its early stages of developments. There are dozens of electronic code check software vendors. Selecting a single system limits competition and therefore innovation. Several problems with adopting electronic plan check technologies have been identified: • Lack of information on the costs including acquisition, training of staff, operation, and maintenance of the software systems • Lack of information on the benefits and reliable Return on Investment data, • Lack of information on what is available and what really works • Lack of maturity of the technology Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age at Fiatech, On Best Practices in Electronic Plan Submittal, Review, Tracking and Storage
As technology evolves, the city will have to go through the entire process of re-engineering its systems again, which is hefty task to undertake: • • • • • • •
Prepare to apply I.T. to plan submittal, review, tracking and/or storage Identify and work with stakeholders Identify current barriers and actions that need to be taken Identify funding sources Where necessary, re-engineer business process Conduct research on products and vendors Draft technical and process requirements document and/or RFP
This requires too much investment in time and money for questionable returns. In these early stages of technology, it is unwise to invest too heavily in a single system which is bound to change and become obsolete. Rather, the city should encourage competition in order to proliferate and advance many forms of plan check technologies. It is also a risk to think that technological solutions will be a fix-all. Technology should complement rather than attempt to replace more fundamental reforms of the regulatory process.
“If all you do is put I.T. on top of a bad regulatory process, then all you will get is a regulatory process that is bad faster.” - Aldona Valicenti, former head of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers Competing compliance authorities are incentivized to adopt, develop, and promote the use of better software. This makes both designers more effective at producing—and authorities more effective at identifying—higher performance designs.
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Liability and Insurance Mechanisms for Quality Control in France “Like standards in other areas, in France building “norms” (or standards) are developed and adopted by a commission composed of the relevant parties in the sector, including representatives of private companies and public institutions. It is led by a public institution, the Scientific and Technical Centre for Construction. These standards or norms are not, by themselves, legally binding documents, and they are not adopted by the government (or parliament). Strictly speaking, they are not automatically “mandatory.” The legislation on construction does not always make reference to them (for instance, article 1792 of the Civil Code, even after its latest amendments, does not mention them). In practice, however, these norms (called DTUs, that is, Documents Techniques Unifiés, “unified technical documents”) are mandatory, some because they are specifically endorsed by government decrees but most simply because they are considered requirements within the framework of the 10-year liability and insurance coverage. Construction contracts between private parties may or may not specify the use of all or some norms, and they may even refer to foreign norms if both parties so decide. The use of French norms is only mandatory in contracts involving public contracting authorities (state or local authorities). The law, however, authorizes insurance companies to refuse coverage to architects, builders, contractors, and so on, if they have not followed “state-of-the-art” building practices. This means that if damage to a building constructed without reference to these norms occurs within the 10-year-liability period, the insurance company may refuse coverage, thus leaving the entire bill to the liable contractor. For all practical purposes, then, these DTUs/norms are mandatory for builders. Without strict mandatory building standards, the system incorporates more innovation. Technical norms are developed primarily by the construction industry itself (supported by public institutions, but these do not necessarily take a leading role). This reduces the cost to the state of their development and ensures that the latest techniques and the various economic perspectives are reflected. Because the norms are not strictly mandatory in private contracts, construction contractors may offer clients alternate technical solutions more advanced than the applicable norms; they may offer greater safety or reliability, for instance, even if at a higher cost. The contractor incurs no legal (that is, criminal) liability if a disregard of norms has no adverse effect on people. The consequences are only economic, in that if damage does occur, the insurance company may refuse to pay. The results in France in terms of safety seem equivalent to the results in neighboring or comparable countries. The ratio of deaths in fires, for example, is roughly similar throughout all Western European countries, France included, despite the very limited state intervention there in safety inspections. Indicators on construction quality (that is, the percentage of buildings for which insurance claims are filed and subsequent costs for repairs compared to the total cost of the building) show a longterm declining trend of repair costs as a percentage of construction costs, going from over 4 percent in the 1990s to around 3.6 percent for buildings completed after 2001. That these figures are both overall low (less than 5 percent) and declining is a positive sign of the system’s effectiveness in terms of quality. In 1967, a major law on development and zoning was adopted. It organized the zoning process and linked construction permits to it. Thus issuance of permits was based only on compliance with zoning and on a multitude of technical requirements, as in previous legislation. The logic of this reform process has been to transfer responsibilities for compliance to private actors. Norms and standards are established, and the state has the power to enforce them, through courts in particular, but day-to-day control is not exerted through state inspections. Construction permits require only basic plans and no detailed technical specifications. Compliance is assured through the liability of private contractors, the provision for mandatory insurance, and the use of private technical controllers. The French experience suggests that a construction regulation system can actually function with very minimal state involvement in control and enforcement—if a robust alternative is in place to ensure compliance. A strong insurance system fulfills this role in France, and it has proven to be a very important element in the success of the system. Emphasizing the liability of private contractors may be a more powerful tool than state inspections in ensuring compliance with standards. Leveraging the power of the market can result in “bad” contractors having difficulty insuring themselves, or they may be able to do so only at a higher price. This factor alone may act as a stronger incentive toward responsibility and care than fear of fines or direct sanctions from a traditional state apparatus system.” Good Practices for Construction Regulation and Enforcement Reform: Guidelines for Reformers
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Conclusion Building practices, and the regulations that govern them, are in constant dialectic. From the Code of Hammurabi, the first recorded building code dating to 1754 BCE, to the invention of blueprints in the mid1800s, to advancements in CAD today, building practices and the laws which govern them are step-in-step. It is important that regulations guide the improvement of building practices, and not limit or stagnate the industry’s development. Worldwide, regulatory systems are adjusting to faster-paced innovations in technologies. There are many ways to achieve or exceed requirements, and technology and growing professional knowledge will continue to reveal them. But top-down, overly-bureaucratic, prescriptive regulatory systems are not effective at harnessing the power of these advancements. A progressive regulatory system must allow more flexibility, capitalize on specific expertise, employ liability mechanisms, and encourage internal and external competition. Such a setup ensures that building practices, and the rules that govern them, evolve synchronously, fluently, and prudently.
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References and Further Reading Performance-Based Design New Zealand Herald: How market forces failed homeowners Singapore Building Construction Authority – Performance-based Building Regulations: Frequently Asked Questions Singapore Building Construction Authority - Objectives of Building Control Act Performance-Based Design for Fire Resistance. Barbara Lane, Ph.D. 2000. John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University: Performance-Based Regulation: Prospects and Limitations in Health, Safety and Environmental Protection. 2002. National Fire Protection Association’s Future in Performance-Based Codes and Standards: Report of the NFPA In-House Task Group. 1995. Alternative Design Procedure for Seismic Analysis and Design of Tall Buildings and Buildings Utilizing Complex Structural Systems Bringing Outcome Based Code Compliance to the International Green Code Council Driving Innovation, Rewarding Performance: Seattle’s Next Generation Energy Codes and Utility Incentives, 2014.
Technology Alliance for Building Regulatory Reform in the Digital Age at Fiatech, On Best Practices in Electronic Plan Submittal, Review, Tracking and Storage Integrated BIM and Design Review for Safer, Better Buildings BIM: How project teams using collaborative design reduce risk, creating better health and safety in projects Automated code-checking: Review of 28 national, state, city and third-party BIM standards and guidelines Bentley Building Design Software Capterra: Top Code Enforcement Software Products New York City Department of Buildings Approves First Three Dimensional BIM Site Safety Plans The National BIM Initiative (Australia) Singapore mandates BIM e-submissions for building projects greater than 5000 square meters Singapore Building and Construction Authority: The BIM Issue Singapore Building and Construction Authority: eServices International References World Bank Doing Business 2012: Dealing with Construction Permits World Bank Doing Business 2014: Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises World Bank Good Practices for Construction Regulation and Enforcement Reform: Guidelines for Reformers National House-Building Council (United Kingdom) Red Tape Challenge: Simplified regulations will make planning easier (United Kingdom) Government names group to simplify building regs. 2012. (United Kingdom) Current City Initiatives City of Los Angeles: The Sustainable City pLAn City of Los Angeles' Initiative to Streamline Its Development Process Becomes Clearer Single Online Portal for all Los Angeles County Permit Applications (EPIC-LA). 2015. L.A. is working on major zoning code revamp Re:code LA 25
Mayor Eric Garcetti Announces Mobile App for Building And Safety Customers Mayor Garcetti Announces Public Online Access to Building Records LA County Online Plan Check System (does not apply to LA city) ePlans Santa Monica Los Angeles making it easier, quicker, cheaper to build in the city. 2014. City of LA Streamlines Building and Safety Processes and Works to Further Improve Customer Service Driven Programs. 2014. Economy How Much Does Los Angeles Have to Build to Get Out of Its Housing Crisis? California’s High Housing Costs: Causes and Consequences. Legislative Analyst’s Office. 2015. National Bureau of Economic Research. Why Is Manhattan So Expensive? Regulation and the Rise in House Prices. Edward L. Glaeser, Joseph Gyourko, Raven Saks. 2003. University of Washington. Municipal and Statewide Land Use Regulations and Housing Prices Across 250 Major US Cities. Theo S. Eicher. 2008. California Economy and Taxes. Legislative Analyst’s Office. 2014. LA Basin and Bay Area Economies Top All But 6 States in 2013. Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. 2014. Los Angeles is nation's 4th largest economy; Bay Area ranks as 6th largest. Sacramento Business Journal. 2014. Other Accreditation of Third-Party Building Department Service Providers International Codes - Adoption by State New York Times: When Builders Are Inspectors Winners and Losers in the Self-Certification Process New York Times: Bloomberg Outlines Plan to Rewrite City’s Construction Codes LA’s Well-Managed City Building & Safety Department Examined Responses to building and safety complaints vary widely across L.A. Local Authority Building Control: Delivering building control through local authorities Better Practice Local Laws: Australia The History of Blueprints
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